Gutless British Government-Typical UN

If you don't remember Louise Arbour she is the obviously VERY High UN Commissioner who spent This past Thanksgiving she went to the Mid East to prove that she a racist anti-Semite. During her trip she announce that terrorist missiles are OK as long as they land on military targets. She refused to meet with and comfort the families of Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah when they asked for a meeting.

Arbour must have been on vacation or something this week, after all it has taken her a few days to start spewing her typical Anti-Israel venom about the British boycotts.

U.N. Official Says Debate Over Israel Boycott ‘A Good Thing'
BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Human Rights commissioner, Louise Arbour, supports "public debate" on a drive by an increasing number of British organizations that have singled Israel out for boycott because of alleged wrongdoings by the Jewish state.The largest British labor union, the 1.6 million-member UNISON, has threatened to launch a drive to boycott Israel, according to press reports yesterday, which were based on sources within the Israeli workers' union, Histadrut. None of the unions has called for similar boycotts against Sudan, Burma, Russia, China, or other human-rights violators....

.....Like the British unions, the one-year-old U.N. Human Rights Council has failed to denounce human-rights violations anywhere in the world except Israel. Ms. Arbour, nevertheless, said yesterday the council, which last year replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission, was "not a failure."

And in its usual gutless fashion the British government refuses to take a real stand:

British officials have denounced the boycott drives but said the government planned no action to avert them. "I can appreciate your frustration," Britain's ambassador to Israel, Tom Phillips, told Ha'aretz. "But I do not believe" these boycotts "will have any implications on bilateral relations," he said.

Well Tommy boy the boycotts shouldn't unless you continue your Government continues its spineless inaction. Maybe Israel should follow the tongue-in-cheek suggestions of Steve Plaut below:

Support the Boycott! End the Occupation!

by Prof. Steven Plaut
A Call for Action Against Occupation

We, Israeli professors for justice and peace, do hereby appeal to researchers, academics, scholars and teachers, in Israel and throughout the world, to take a firm and clear stand against continuing occupation and denial of rights.

We are, of course, referring to the continuing British occupation of territories in which Britain clearly has no right to be. We demand that all British universities be boycotted, and all academics at those universities be boycotted, until these same people and institutions come out clearly and openly in favor of immediate unconditional removal of all British occupation from these territories. We demand a moratorium on all funding of academic research in Britain by sources for funding everywhere, and divestment from Britain in all its forms.

Unlike Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (the latter of which is not occupied any longer in any way), which has lasted a mere 40 years, Britain's occupations of territories has lasted centuries. Take, for example, the clearly illegal British occupation of Gibraltar. There, Britain maintains an illegal settlement in open defiance of all internationally accepted standards of legitimacy and concepts of national rights. Moreover, BritainGibraltar. This "apartheid fence" is a human rights atrocity and must be torn down at once. And until it is, the entire world should divest from Britain and boycott British universities. has placed there an illegal security fence that prevents non-British nationals from entering

Then there are those clearly illegal British settlements constructed on occupied Argentinian territory in the Falkland Islands. What clearer example is there of the continuing colonial aggression of white European imperialism against the Third World?

But Britain's illegal settlements have also been constructed elsewhere. Britain continues to maintain settlements on the Channel Islands that obviously belong to France. While it is true that Britain earlier ended its occupations of Hong Kong and India, that is no excuse for its settlements elsewhere. After all, Israel ended its occupation of Sinai, but that has not stopped the British University and College Union, representing more than 120,000 college-level educators, from voting on May 30 to pass a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli academics and universities, as well as a moratorium on European Union funding of Israeli research.

And what about Britain's occupation forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. True, Afghanistan and Iraq were terrorist enclaves, but since when does that serve as legitimization of dispatch of occupation forces? British professors clearly do not think that Israel has any right to use force against terrorists attacking its population, so why should British forces do so?

Of course, the very worst cases of illegal British occupation of the territories of The Other are in Wales, ScotlandIreland. These are occupations imposed upon those oppressed populations by force of arms. And in Ireland, the occupation produced genocidal levels of mortality. These occupations have lasted for centuries. and

The moral indifference by British academics to these continued barbarous occupations and to the denial of self-determination for Scots, Welsh and the Northern Irish is clearly as unforgivable as the failure of some academics in apartheid South Africa to speak out against abuses there. Moreover, Britain itself is a racist apartheid society. Not only the Welsh, but Muslims, Blacks, and Asians suffer from discrimination and disadvantage inside Britain. Their wages are lower than those of White Englishmen and they face discrimination in housing. British universities have failed to redress these inequalities.

If divestment from South Africa was justified, then how much more so must it be in this case. In fact, 27 British professors have endorsed our calls for imposing an international boycott of their own universities. These courageous, heroic souls must be supported.

We have sat in silence for much too long. The time has come. Please join us in calling for an open-ended boycott of British academics and universities until all these cases of occupation are ended.

Israeli Professors for Justice and Peace

Steven Plaut, Chairperson